There was a time Gary Lineker was ubiquitous. When it came to Saturday night sport in the UK, he was just there, like the weather.It was Match of the Day, TV commercials, hit TV dramas, talk shows, the BBC’s coverage of Olympic Games, European Championships and, of course, World Cups.Ah, World Cups. The man who starred in two notable tournaments for England as a striker went on to leverage his easygoing charm as the presenter who eventually flourished into national-treasure territory.Not quite any more. Because he went and got political, didn’t he, and the BBC regime did not like it, nudging him towards the exit at the end of the last Premier League season after one too many impartiality-breaching tweets.So exit the mainstream (well, terrestrial TV), enter the full-time and evermore lucrative content-sphere. Lineker’s money-spinning production company Goalhanger, behind hit podcast series The Rest Is… (Lineker hosts the football edition), has become a behemoth.But sometimes, you just need a good old-fashioned TV fix. So thank you, ITV, for putting Gary back on the telly for one night only on Saturday.In turbulent times, there was something soothing about seeing Lineker back on a couch, beaming at us from ITV’s Brooklyn set, bantering with presenter Laura Woods and the panel (including former BBC pal Ian Wright) just like old times.Lineker’s ITV cameo — variously labelled as a ‘shock’ appearance and a dig at the BBC — was equal parts reassuring nostalgia, insightful, fun and at times ever-so-slightly awkward.Like the hokey gag of Lineker pretending to introduce the show before Woods interrupted. “Sorry… old habits,” he muttered (classic Gary), to the nudge-nudge praise for the broadcaster’s impressive set, which is actually in the U.S., unlike other sets, which, well, aren’t but Gary doesn’t have a view on that.